Posted on 01/03/2004 3:23:50 PM PST by Holly_P
Oh, man... Tell me about it.
When I was an MI LT in 1991 (force-branched MI, can you believe?) they gave us the DLAT (Language aptitude test).
I damned near aced it. I loved that goofy test with the made-up vocabulary and stuff...
I talked to my branch officer and told him I want to learn a 'Cat IV' language--I want to learn Arabic, Mandarin, Korean--whatever there is a need for...
No dice. I couldn't get in by hook or crook...
I guess I ended up using that language skill by teaching myself to play the bagpipe...
The Army 1991-1996 was misery. So politically correct and stupid ('specially MI) that, honestly, I have had a hard time feeling at all proud of my service. I look back on it and think: "What a stupid, stupid waste of time that was..."
I've always wanted to visit China. I took a Chinese history course in college from an inspiring professor and in high school hung out at Joyce Chen's restaurant in Cambridge. China rocks.
But I can't rationalize a visit to a country that still has so many totalitarian, undemocratic cooties.
I feel guardedly optimistic though, that I'll be able to visit China and take my family there while they are still school aged.
- Lauging at a joke that you weren't supposed to understand.
- Catching someone complain about the presence of foriegn devils, turning around, and agreeing with him completely. "Yeah, I thought this was such a nice place, but I wish they would do something about all these dirty foriengers."
- Haggling with someone in English, then switching to target language and saying 'Okay, enough of the tourist prices, I'll give you half or I'm leaving'.
- Making a joke in a foriegn language that would make no sense in English.
and my personal favorite
- Catching someone tell you one thing in English, then try and double cross you when he talks to his buddy next to him. Relpying with "Don't worry, it's safe to speak xxxx in front of me, I don't understand a word" in xxxx, and watching the phrase register with one guy but not the other made months of effort pay off. (It also helped in avoiding a nasty double crossing, but that's another story entirely)
They will try and rip you off, though. Not violently, but they'll try and trick you at literally every turn.
As far as totalitarian shenanigans, I did get to see their police in action on a few occasions (which they try and hide from foreigners) and I felt very, very thankful that I was an American.
Beat me to it. I was gonna say that. Sure I have loads of stories, not a one am I gonna remember for my grandkids under penalty of Fort Leavenworth.
2. Why on earth hasn't the military perfected babelfish? It seems that it would be alot cheaper for the military to issue a small recorder device that can determine what language is being spoken and translate to English and back to the foreign language.
1. Not everyone has the aptitude for secondary language acquisition (they are doing really well just to be proficient in English!) A lot of people rock out of DLI and end up doing other jobs, more suitable to their abilities.
2. Babelfish is a national security risk that US is not ready to take. It would be cool though. Remember those gremlin-looking stuffed animal dolls that would "learn" to speak to you? Those are considered a national security risk, and were outlawed from MI installations (and confiscated from anyone who had 'em) as soon as they were marketed to the public. And all they did was babble.
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